My wife has seen cuts in the BIG hospital here due to Obamacare. Liberals are NOT going to accept this ,but it's a fact, Obamacare is going to add to unemployment big time. My wife is a surgery RN and a Co-ordinator of the Surgery dept.. She buys the supplies and equipment that will be taxed under Obamacare. Her staff has been 5 women under her for years. The hospital Administrator has ordered cuts from 5 women to 2. My wife now has 2 women to help prepare surgery and maintain it from 6am to 6pm. The new tax on equipment has hurt also. They are buying everything now before next years tax kicks in. The medical salesmen are scared to death of their future. My wifes hours are no longer 40 ,but more like 45-48 all the time, but they laid off 3 people. The whole dept. has been cut from 70 to 60 people. The rehab unit and Emergency room has been cut. They are at capacity taking in plenty of money and full rooms, no fewer patients, just more costs. Liberals don't understand business costs. All LPN openings are not being filled. They're leeping RN's only. Many LPN's are going to have to leave for private clinic duty for less pay and benefits. But , Obama is for the people,Geez.

quote:Gee, I don't know... why don't you poll the millions of doctors in the rest of the world who make good livings?

Rex, unless you are a physician and know the cost, the time it takes to become a physician, the debt that you incur, the cost of running a private practice, the drug seekers you have to deal with on a daily basis and the crappy reimbursement you get from government health care, then I suggest you study the MCAT, go to medical school and then you will be qualified to comment. Otherwise, please refrain from commenting on something you know absolutely nothing about!

quote:More people going to clinics would mean more REVENUE for those providers.

Another stupid quote. More people going to a clinic on a fixed-based cost projection does compute to more profit, but clinics are on Variable-cost models. The more patients you have, the more cost you incur (staff, bigger building, etc...) When the payer is not increasing the payments, but the patients increase, then you make no money.

re: I Work In Healthcare (Posted on 11/13/12 at 10:08 am to notslim99)

quote:Another stupid quote. More people going to a clinic on a fixed-based cost projection does compute to more profit, but clinics are on Variable-cost models. The more patients you have, the more cost you incur (staff, bigger building, etc...) When the payer is not increasing the payments, but the patients increase, then you make no money.

This is absolutely true and Rex will never understand this concept because he has no clue about medical reimbursement.

re: I Work In Healthcare (Posted on 11/13/12 at 10:13 am to buddhavista)

You make some good points, it is always interesting to hear from a doctor's perspective.

Cutting administration costs may help cut the overall cost of healthcare in the future, no doubt, but in the short-term you must agree that the first way to cut administration costs is to cut employees. On a massive scale such as healthcare, this means less jobs and higher unemployment.

re: I Work In Healthcare (Posted on 11/13/12 at 10:25 am to Shankopotomus)

cutting employees will absolutely happen to insurance providers, but that's also because some of those administrative costs of healthcare are being ended.

for example something that used to take a decent number of human hours was coming up with policies for people with pre-existing conditions. they would have to go through and sort out how sick you were and change your premiums accordingly (or deny you coverage). but aca basically eliminated the existence of this entire profession because you can no longer discriminate against those with pre-existing conditions.

re: I Work In Healthcare (Posted on 11/13/12 at 10:34 am to notslim99)

quote:My father-in-law had a medical practice that consisted mainly of elderly sick people on Medicare. By the time he closed his practice, Medicare was paying my father-in-law $29 for an hour visit

I don't know what year he retired, but the Medicare reimbursement is considerably higher now. Medicare does get a discount but it is not out of line with the discounts taken by other insurance companies like Blue Cross.

Now Medicaid is another story. The state determines those reimbursement rates and they have been squeezing doctors mercilessly for several years. This has nothing to do with Obamacare.

re: I Work In Healthcare (Posted on 11/13/12 at 10:35 am to buddhavista)

quote:insurance spending so much on administration.

This is certainly a big driver of the cost. My current doc just shut down his practice my previous doc converted to a concierge practice that accepts no insurance. This model is still the minority but look for it to grow. There will be many doctors who simply won't accept Obamacare insurance for the same reason they are stopping accepting the private stuff. They want to practice medicine, not accounting.

If you want and appointment, you pay up front before service out of your own pocket. Then you deal with the reimbursement headache not the doctor.

quote:but aca basically eliminated the existence of this entire profession because you can no longer discriminate against those with pre-existing conditions.

Good Lord! That's as dense as your arguments for socialized healthcare at forced wage, while at the other end being all for governmental guarantees in your field.

Indeed Obamacare did eliminate consideration of pre-existing conditions in issuing insurance. It is the single cost prohibitive mechanism which will drive private carriers from the field. Yet you have the unmitigated gall to regard it as a cost saver to those companies?

quote:I don't know what year he retired, but the Medicare reimbursement is considerably higher now. Medicare does get a discount but it is not out of line with the discounts taken by other insurance companies like Blue Cross.

He closed up shop in 2010. I don't know how much more they pay now, but for him to pay himself a salary, he told me that he had to have at least $100 per patient. I'm pretty sure that the reimbursements haven't gone up that much.

quote:This has nothing to do with Obamacare.

The $700+ billion that Obamacare took from Medicare sure as hell doesn't help.